United disorder: the military and politics in Bolsonaro's government

Abstract

The return of military forces to politics, in the core of the rise of Bolsonaro’s candidacy, has provided new challenges for the study of civil-military relations in Brazil. This article aims to analyze, in the heat of the moment, the reversal of expectations occurred in the early months of the former military officer government, from a guarding and controlling perspective to the finding that the new president is unmanageable. General officers have been attacked by sectors close to the head of state, fired or limited in their sphere of power. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro seems to increasingly concentrate power in his hands.